Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so[1]
On Earth no more, but mingled with the skies?
Still wilt thou dream on future Joy and Woe?[2]
Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies:
That little urn saith more than thousand Homilies.
V.
Or burst the vanished Hero's lofty mound;
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps:N3
He fell, and falling nations mourned around;
But now not one of saddening thousands weeps,
Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps
Where demi-gods appeared, as records tell.[3][4]
Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps:
Is that a Temple where a God may dwell?
Why ev'n the Worm at last disdains her shattered cell!
VI.
Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
- ↑ [Compare Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act iii. sc. 1, lines 5-7—
"Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep."] - ↑ Still wilt thou harp .—[MS. D. erased.]
- ↑ Though 'twas a God, as graver records tell.—[MS. erased.]
- ↑ [The demigods Erechtheus and Theseus "appeared" at Marathon, and fought side by side with Miltiades (Grote's History of Greece, iv. 284).]
